|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Television, Kids, and the Real Danny Kaye
| Article
# : |
20361 |
|
|
Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
|
| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1992 |
7,098 Words |
| Author
: |
David Schatzky With Leanna Verrucci
David Schatzky, the executive director of the Children's
Broadcast Institute in Toronto, is a teacher, communications
consultant, psychotherapist, and veteran broadcaster. Leanna
Verrucci is a researcher in children's psychological
development and media. |
Forty years ago in England, I saw my first television program, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. I viewed it as through a glass darkly--fuzzy, gray, and very small. But the very fact that a six-year-old boy could be transported into Westminster Abbey, hundreds of miles away, seemed to me a miracle. Since then, similar television snapshots or reality, shared by the rest of humanity, have formed for me and for all of us a catalog of life's highs and lows.
But great moments are not all that television brings into our lives. Nothing is alien to it; everything is grist for the mill. How much of this we expose our children to says a lot about our values and our society's commitment to children.
What should our children watch on television? Do we say to our kids, Don't watch what is there or what you enjoy, just watch what we say is good? I wish these were simple questions. And, as a parent, I am profoundly aware that there are no simple answers and that, if television is as important in the shaping of character and values as many claim, the answer could have a significant impact on the state and nature of society.
What the majority of North Americans watch is commercial television, which sells audiences to advertisers. If a market can be identified, a television format can be developed to cater to it. If beer drinkers want violence, a violent show can be made to satisfy beer drinkers and beer makers. If greed entertains, a show based on greed is easy to devise and sell to sponsors. If intolerance, pettiness, crassness, and personal putdowns have mass appeal, you can be sure programs will emerge to feed the sponsors' needs to reach those viewers. And all the while, children will be there, in great numbers, to soak it all up.
As much as we like to think that parents are there to mediate their children's viewing and to share family values with their offspring, the truth is that the pervasive nature of television is very powerful and that almost every North American, child or adult, is a captive of the television culture of the twentieth century. This shared experience includes Ninja Turtles, Wheel of Fortune, CNN Headline News, and WWF wrestling. It is frightening to think of how television shapes our children's view of the world.
By the time my son Daniel, named after my idealized childhood image of Danny Kaye, turned five, he had already seen more programs and movies on television and on videotape than I had by the age of sixteen.
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
